Scott Bernstein

It’s a little weird that Bruce Hornsby and the Noisemakers has given me a better holiday gift than anyone in my family. [The Better] Bruce offers up a mix of the best tracks from this past summer’s tour freely available for download for a limited time through through his website. This amazing compilation features some of Bruce’s best originals, as well as killer covers like Standing On The Moon.

• The Ultimate Bootleg Experience found the best Led Zep aud recording
• Umphrey’s McGee gets by with a little help from their friends on the 56th edition of their long-running podcast series
• My Jazz World kicks down Herbie Mann’s Live at the Whisky A Go Go
• The Roadhouse presents this recording of VH-1’s Storytellers featuring the original lineup of Smashing Pumpkins
• Nazz Nomad pays tribute to John Lennon over at Bleedin’ Out
• Smuggled Sounds looks back on one of Faith No More’s best
• Bootleg Friday makes a strong return with a Little Feat boot from 1973

Finally, the always-on NYCTaper shares his fine lossless recordings of Yo La Tengo, Fiery Furnaces and a band we’re hearing tons about, MGMT…

We couldn’t hide our excitement and our plays on words when Tea Leaf Green announced that Reed Mathis would be taking over on bass for the foreseeable future. Personnel changes have a way of breathing new life into a band’s music, and Tea Leaf Green’s no exception. Mathis played his first two gigs with TLG this past weekend, and luckily a kind taper uploaded Saturday night’s show to the Live Music Archive within a few hours of the concert ending.

Tea Leaf Green 12/08/2007 DAUD [FLAC, MP3, STREAM]:

Photo by Chris O’Brien

I’m not a big Tea Leaf Green fluffer, so I consider myself pretty unbiased when it comes to analyzing their music. Most of the early reports about new bass player Reed Mathis’ have been overwhelming positive, but I wanted to hear it for myself. Now that I’ve heard him, color me impressed. Not only did the adapting band do a great job with the songs, they also hit some interesting peaks during the jams.

The jam of the night came towards the end of Piss It Away when Mathis led the boys down a dark path for a musical ass-kicking. Both Trevor and Josh came prepared, laying down some nice melodies over Reed’s probing bass lines. Ben Chambers was a solid bass player, but Reed Mathis pushed the members of TLG, rather than just playing along with them. Tea Leaf Green followed up Piss It Away with their Garden trilogy, starting with Part II before segueing into Part I and finally finishing with Part III. Clark earned a roar from the audience when he worked teases of Shakedown Street into the beginning of Garden Part II. Damn heady.

Other highlights from this show include Reed’s bass solo during Hot Dog, and everyone’s playing during what used to be Chambers’ signature song, Franz Hanzerbeak. Supposedly the new incarnation of Tea Leaf Green only had one day of practice as a band before taking the stage on Friday night. If that’s true we can’t even imagine how good this ensemble will be if they stay together for a while. While this audience tape sounds great, treat yourself to the official recording over at livedownloads to hear Tea Leaf Green 2.0. Read on for more GTA…

The White Stripes cancelled the remaining dates on their World Tour back in September when Meg White came down with a case of acute anxiety and couldn’t travel. It seems like Voluptuous Meggers is still wary of getting back on the bus. Jack White recently told the LA Times there’s a chance the White Stripes will forgo touring in the future to focus on studio work a la The Beatles. Because when we think of the White Stripes, we often think of the The Beatles.

Let’s see what else is out there besides the Plant/Krauss at Bonnaroo news…

• SNL’s Fred Armisen lists ten things he bought/got/looked at this year that he loves for Brooklyn Vegan
• Jesse Jarnow recaps Yo La Tengo’s Hanukkah shows
• Brian Wilson’s first foray into the exciting career of Camp Counselor
• Beck might have played a tangential role in a double suicide
• Not surprisingly, Sly Stone continues to underwhelm audiences by leaving early and showing little interest in most gigs
• Tickets are on sale now for the 18th annual High Sierra festival
• The NY Post looks at the best of rock music merch
• Al Schnier, Keller Williams, Marco Benevento and several other folks list their favorite memories of 2007 for Jambands.com

Finally, we’re saddened but completely unsurprised to find out that Quiet Riot’s Kevin Dubrow died of a cocaine overdose. The Riot’s quieter these days.

Led Zeppelin may not be headlining next year’s Bonnaroo, but last week’s hot rumor wasn’t too far off the mark. As it turns out Robert Plant will be performing in

The wet dream of Wilco fanboys and fangirls everywhere came true today with the announcement that the band plans to play their entire recorded catalog during a five-night residency at

Two of this rag’s favorite musicians joined forces on Saturday night when Mike “Silent G” Gordon came out to play bass during Chest Fever at Levon Helm‘s Midnight Ramble in

Until now we haven’t had much use for MTV-wannabe, The Fuse Network. That’s changed thanks to an interesting new series called Videos That Rocked The World, a show which profiles

Mike Gordon and Bill Kreutzmann will continue their trend of playing in lush tropical locales on January 5th in Costa Rica. Steve Kimock will be busy sailing the seas on

Nothing encapsulates the questionable marriage of sports and entertainment quite like the Super Bowl. The halftime show of the NFL’s signature event has been transformed over the past 42 years from an afterthought to a main focus of the Big Game. What was once a time for a piss break and a follow-up beer has turned into a big-time production thanks to the major television networks.

Originally the shows were filled with brief performances by a number of different artists celebrating a unifying theme. More recently the NFL decided to hand over the keys to the halftime show to just one legendary artist. What a difference a nipple makes, eh? Just this week the league announced that Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers have been tabbed to perform at Super Bowl XLII on February 3rd.

The Gainesville-bred band should look at the past for an idea of what works and what doesn’t work at the big game. Let’s use this week’s B List to take a look at our 10 favorite Super Bowl halftime shows. Read on for the videos…

You may be as surprised as we are to find out that Wilco’s Jeff Tweedy was asked to write the theme song for a sitcom called All My Life back